The Top Chef Plate Recap: The Virtues of Chili Oil

"Quail is small, Stefan? Did you really use that as an excuse for overcooking it?" Top Chef overlord Tom Colicchio said in a blog post breaking down this week's episode — one filled with the typical excuses, stunts, and bloody knife accidents. There was a dramatic reveal in which three past contestants — Stefan Richter, Chris Jacobsen, and Josie Smith-Malave — were brought back, only to serve a dish deemed one of the worst.

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But there was a winner last night: The "Blue Team" (Sheldon Simeon, John Tesar, Kuniko Yagi) went two-for-two with their dishes. The first, in the Quickfire round, was a very attractive geoduck sashimi, ponzu, apple, and cucumber. The second, prepared in the Space Needle for legendary chef Tom Douglas, was chili oil-poached cod with dashi and spot prawn shabu shabu. Colicchio noted that poaching cod in chili oil is a relatively new technique and requires precision, and it probably added a kick to that dashi. Both dishes looked great, but the second was the real victory for a team that up until now was largely identified by their regional origins (Texas, Hawaii, Japan). All the other teams' dishes — well, there were problems. Like that quail.